Work Text:
To My Dearest
【Side A】
Dearest Q:
I hope you will be happy when you see the letter.
I don't know if you're going to get this letter because I'm really embattled right now. Our home had already burned down in the shelling, I only had time to bring paper and pens, and your favorite jade pendant was also burned in the fire, and I am really sorry that I could not bring it out in time.
This will probably be my last love letter to you. I'm sure this will be the most meaningful one I've ever written, more meaningful than anything I've ever given you. But unfortunately I can't even guarantee that it will be delivered to you. But that's okay, I'm sure God will always help me put it in your hands.
Q，I hope you are well in the fields of Orleans. I am sure that our most loyal friends, Zain and Xander, will take good care of you, and their home is the safest place I can think of. The sky of Orleans must be beautiful, and I miss the sapphire sky, no matter how many times it has been washed by the flames of war, it is still as pure as the blue ground, like the Loire River that crosses the city, no matter how the world changes, it can still sing a calm and distant song and run into the distance.
Orleans was once our favorite city because it was a relic of Joan of Arc. Q, you have said that Joan of Arc is your most admired hero, and I believe that breathing the same air under the same sky with her is good for you and your children. Speaking of which, I hope you can have a meal on time, although the Zain's cooking skill is not as good as mine, but he is an Oriental after all, we will always have a difference in taste.Do not reduce nutritional supplements because you are not used to eating, and do not learn from those so-called Parisian celebrities, in order to tighten the waist desperately hurt themselves. I'll really feel bad then it.
If you feel boring in the hut, you can go boating on the Loire. Although I am not by your side, standing at the bow of the boat and feeling the whispers of the ancient city can also open your heart and relieve the depression in your heart. If you really miss me, you can sing at the bow of the boat. Oh dear, don't sing the La Marseillaise. I like it, but it's too ostentatious. Whatever you sing, trust that the French wind will transmit your songs and thoughts to me, just as it can convey my thoughts and love to you.
……
Q, I hope you can read the rest calmly. I don't want to add too much pain and stress to you, I know that you are a strong girl.You are the strongest and most beautiful girl I have ever seen in the world, you are as bright and romantic as the sun in the sky. I don't want you to cry, but, I have to tell you.
Sorry, Q, I disappointed you.
Just yesterday, we lost our last ground. Until then, we had the most horrific week created by those hypocritical so-called government forces. We had to retreat to Lachaise Cemetery. Q, do you remember the sky of Paris, the blue expanse that is not lost in the slightest to the beautiful sky of Orleans? It was in that week that it turned red, a fiery red as blood, which was dyed with French blood. A true Frenchman. And not hypocritical politicians who grovel to the Germans and choose to surrender.
Why? Do the French suffer like this? Why should the French be slaughtered by their own compatriots? Why is Paris an island? Become a purgatory? Beautiful Paris, Paris in full bloom like roses, it has been destroyed by cowards and artillery fire. Now it was silent, and even the most annoying insect sounds of the summer night were masked by artillery fire. But my ears were deafening. I heard Paris crying, she was crying for her children, she was crying for the children who were still fighting, she was crying for the children who were dying with blood. Paris shed tears tonight.
Q, I heard her crying, so I cried too. Today, I was carrying a gun and wanted to die with the enemy, but I heard her call.
She said: Child, stop and write a letter to your child. So, I stopped and dodged a stray bullet. I believe that Paris has not abandoned me, and that she loves me as much as I love you. At least, temporarily, she saved my life.However, the old guys around me are not so lucky. Originally, our team was large enough, but now there are only a few two hundred people left. We all know that we may not survive tomorrow.
Our commander-in-chief was killed.
From March 26 to now, artillery fire has covered Paris for more than two months. Everyone's emotions have been completely broken, but none of my partners have backed down, even though everyone has heard the footsteps of the Grim Reaper.
Oh, speaking of which, I think I should tell you that during the retreat yesterday, a small pebble that did not have long eyes cut my right cheek. Although it was done with simple treatment, it still left scars. I hope you don't dislike me for breaking my face, you have to believe in my soul, and the soul that loves you will never change. Although these two months were really uneventful, and everyone was exhausted, no one chose to stop and rest. In the beginning, everyone was excited because for the first time, in a real sense, we were in charge. Of course, you know, I didn't think the situation was optimistic at that time, but I really didn't want to disturb their excitement. Everyone discussed and established various policies, especially measures to protect working people. Until now, I felt like I had a dream, a beautiful and absurd dream. How can there be such a beautiful, unreal regime in this world? But the commune came true! Although it is only two short months.
I had an intuition that this couldn't work because it didn't fit a whole bunch of rules. However, I didn't expect it to fail so quickly and so embarrassingly. We were betrayed. Q. We were betrayed and murdered by our own people. All of us tried our best and shed our blood, but we were still crushed by shameful traitors and cowards.
The first to fall was the bustling western region, inhabited by gleaming superiors. They even welcomed the Thiers army positively, sending them news so that they could easily take the city gates. Fortunately, the workers in the east were not so soft-boned, and everyone rose up to resist, after all, no one wants to live in the darkness of hopelessness. However, our forces are too weak and vulnerable, we do not have a unified defense plan, and each neighborhood is separated. After the streets of Paris were widened, it became more difficult to fight street battles. Plus those brutal Thiers troops are also quite cunning. Oh, how I wish they were a bunch of idiots. They have a centralized, rational command and absolute numerical superiority, as well as one hundred percent ruthlessness. They chiseled through the walls of the houses and outflanked them from the flanks.
They were simply Satan from hell, with guns turned on unarmed people, and I saw them kill a girl who was only 19 years old. Oh my God, she was just the age when flowers were about to bloom, and she was rudely destroyed like this. The whole of Paris was wailing in pain. When they killed them, did they ever think that they were also French, and they were also French who grew up listening to the story of Joan of Arc and Napoleon?
Q, I'm sitting in the dark now. The sky was really beautiful tonight, and the moon was so bright and gentle that enough for me to see what I was writing. I've been holding a gun for two months, and the moment I touch the pen, I feel more free than ever. Yes, free. I have said that only when I have a pen in my hand can make my soul detach itself from my physical body and carry my mind into the vast and distant distance. The gun tells me that I am full of shackles and get bogged down, but the pen tells me that I am full of wings and free.
Q, do you remember our first encounter? Right on the Seine. A destitute journalist, with a pocket of self-righteous arrogance, meets the most beautiful girl in the world. Her blonde hair was like a rolling wheat wave, and her eyes were like the clear sky of Paris. She wore a sapphire blue dress, hummed a light song, stepped on ancient bricks, and descended to me like an angel.
You stand across from me and politely ask if you can share a coffee table with me. I was scratching my hair in a mess, holding a pen behind the base of my ear, and the whole table was a mess of manuscript paper. Embarrassed, I hurriedly collected my paper. At that time, the wind in Paris was really naughty. It blew away my manuscript and made me even more scrambled. You chuckled and stopped the paper, avoiding the embarrassment of me going to the Seine to fish for it.
At that time, I thanked you with a red face. Because you are so beautiful that I can't think. I couldn't even say a full thank you.
I want to tell you a secret. Although I seemed to be writing my manuscript seriously, I actually didn't write anything that afternoon. None of those sentences went smoothly. Because I spent the whole afternoon thinking about how to talk to you, even ignoring the book in your hand.
That day until the sun set into the Seine and the stars filled the sky. None of us could say a word. Looking at your departing back, I was very annoyed. But I am not a man who will be easily defeated, and the French will never be easily defeated. After that, I would go to that café every day and wait for you for an afternoon. You didn't come everyday, but you always met me.You always sit at the same coffee table with me.
I found out that you are a fan of Hugo, and so am I. Literature allowed us to become friends successfully. We are all passionate about literature, keen to think, keen to give everything we have for the future of France. Together, we explored the history of the country and left our own footsteps and stories in the city. We also went to Orleans at that time, and on the walls where Joan of Arc walked, I proposed to you. I said, if you want to be Joan of Arc, then I am willing to spend my life following your banner.
Later, we got married at the door of Notre Dame. The setting sun that day was red , as if it had been ignited by fire. We kissed in the fiery sunset. We didn't have enough money for the wedding, but it doesn't matter.The sunset, the full moon, and the stars are all our witnesses. They agreed with God's will that we be married and witness our future. Kind passers-by have given us their sincerest wishes. Because romance and courage are engraved in the bones of the French. They are willing to send their blessings and experiences to every brave pair of children who are willing to face life side by side.
It was the early summer of 1870, and the damned Prussians had not yet trampled on French lands. At that time, France was still the most powerful country on the European continent. Of course, France is still great today. At that time, the Palace of Versailles still flew the beautiful tricolor of France, so that the cry of freedom, democracy and fraternity resounded throughout Europe.
Q, I'm sorry to send you out of Paris on my own initiative after the end of the war. I know you're angry, but, as I told you when you were leaving, you're hopeful. You have our hope, and you have the hope of France. I can't let you just bury yourself in Paris, nor can I let him/her lose the right to come into this world. Q，you are still so young, you are still so beautiful, you are still so dazzling. He/she has not yet seen the splendor of France, the greatness of France. You can't just stay in Paris silently. France needs you.
To be honest, before the revolution in Paris began, I knew that it was irrational to stay in Paris and support the revolution. I still have so many places that I haven't traveled, so many stories that I haven't recorded. But I was so angry that I could barely pick up my favorite pen. Those damned Germans, who walked the streets of Paris with such brazenness, ravaged the land of France, how could they bend to those weak and incompetent Thiers troops? The people of Paris did not give in, on what basis did they yield?
When I was in Montmartre, looking out at Paris in the distance, I heard the cry. The cries of the French never gave in. I truly felt the cry of the citizens of Paris a hundred years ago when they rushed to the Bastille with their flags aloft and tear through the darkness! So heartbreaking, so deafening, so thrilling!
I know, my companions have heard,too.So we all left our pens, workers left their tools, the women left their slices, the children left their toys. Everyone took up their guns and embarked on the road of no return to follow the martyrs.
With the blood of Joan of Arc in our bodies, the blood of Majesty Napoleon, the blood of countless forefathers who shed their blood for France, we cannot admit defeat here.
However, the epoch abandoned France, and those high-class people abandoned France. The French sun is tightly obscured by the dark clouds they have created. but I believe that the strong wind will eventually blow the dark clouds away and the French sun will rise again.
Dear Q, my dearest Q. I saw the sun rising, and I greeted it until my eyes were filled with tears, but I still looked at it. No one can stop the sun from rising, no one!
Q，how I wish our children could grow up in such a sun. Q， you know how excited I was when I heard you were pregnant. That night, I held you in my arms and stayed up all night. I thought that I would take him on a boat ride on the Seine, that I would tell him about Joan of Arc and Napoleon, that I would tell him about Paris in 1789, Paris in 1840, and Paris today. I want to tell him that France is the most beautiful country in the world. She has the most glorious civilization and history, with the most romantic and deep literature. Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. She sings freedom, equality, and fraternity to the whole world, and makes the whole earth shake for her.
Unfortunately，Q. I can't do it anymore. I entrust you with this little wish. I know you're a good relater. You can speak more vividly than I do, and you can convey my thoughts to him/her more unreservedly.
If he/she asks about his/her father, you can tell him. I turned into the French wind and stroked his/her hair with my endless love. I am in everywhere.
Time is running out, Q . I have more things want to tell you. But...... Unfortunately, today is still cloudy, and the sun has hidden in the clouds again. The sky without the sun is really unaesthetic, like an ugly and dull gray fluttering wall.
Once again, hope the weather in Orleans is pleasant enough.
Give my regards to Zain and Xander.If you meet Ling,please give my regards to her,too
Your love，
Daniel
23rd，May,1871
【Side B】
The winds of Paris had long since blown away the smoke and bloodshed of 1871.
I met Mrs. Q by chance in a bookstore in Paris. She is a beautiful lady. Although the years have dyed her long hair like a golden blanket with silver ash, her originally plump face has become thin, but it is still difficult to hide her brilliance. It was an amazing experience. I just find a spot in the corner of that bookstore to read Hugo's book, and she came to me to talk. We quickly started talking. She told me that the book I read happened to be her husband's favorite, and that they bonded because of it.
When I asked about her husband, Mrs. Q was silent. Her azure eyes were filled with sadness and nostalgia. She said softly, "My husband's name is Daniel.He is a poet, a journalist, a warrior. He turned into a Parisian breeze at the Lachaise cemetery in 1871. ”
I didn't pursue it because it was rude. But Mrs. Q told me everything. She said that when she heard that the revolution had failed, she wanted to leave for Paris immediately. But at that time, she had just finished giving birth, and she didn't have the extra strength to rush. Moreover, her friends in Orleans stopped her.
She sat alone with her child on the walls of Orleans for a day and a night. She said that day she really heard the gunshots in Paris, smelled the blood, and enveloped her with the freest wind in France. She heard the cries of France, heard the cries of Paris. She looked at the child's sleeping face and calmed down. She didn't cry, not a single tear. She felt at that moment that she could not cry for the rest of her life. Call her indifferent, or strong, and she settled in Orleans, spending ten years in the city of Joan of Arc.
Ten years later, she returned to Paris and first arrived at the Lachaise cemetery. It was winter. It was snowing heavily in Paris, and after she had settled her child, she arrived at the cemetery alone in the snow. She listened to the biting wind wailing and singing the unyielding song of the warriors. White snow covered the cemetery's grounds, covering up all the blood of resistance and bravery.
"I took sheepskin gloves and gouged open the snowdrift with my bare hands. I felt my face hurt so much, my tears were almost frozen by the cold wind. Those tears scraped my cheeks like sharp knives. I thought ten years had passed and I had put him down. That's just a self-deceptive lie. I paralyzed myself with lies, forced myself to face the ups and downs of life, and forced myself to build a safe and stable growth space for our children. But I love him so much, so I must find him. ”
"So did you find him?"
"Of course." Q said with a smile, pulling out an old cowhide seal from her arms. The handwriting on it was blurred by the bloodstains, but I recognized the words.
"To my dearest Q."
I was so fortunate to read the famous poet, journalist, national hero, revolutionary soldier Mr. Daniel's pen and to have it published in the newspaper.
I think that no matter what the age, human beings will never be crushed by fate. Our ancestors will turn into a breeze, forever guarding and blessing us.
The End